


Children in the White

by VampirePaladin



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Human, Amnesia, Be My Hetalia, Child Death, Experimentation, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, off screen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/pseuds/VampirePaladin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The children are taken to the room in white.  The children are taken away from the room one by one.  The boys forget those that were taken.  The girls always remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children in the White

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Be My Hetalia gift for kahlanaisling.

The room was white. White like snow. A better comparison would be to say it was white like bones. It was kept perfectly sterile. A microbe would have to get a passport to enter this clean place. The chains and tables were all metal. The floor was cold. The only softness in this place were the beds.

In ones, twos and small groups the room was slowly filled with children. The people that wore all white brought them here. They gave them warm food and new toys. The rags on the children’s backs were replaced with soft, warm clothes. Before, these children had to struggle just to survive in the dying world outside. Now, they got to spend their days in the white room.

The door opened and a figure in clean white clothing led in three new children. They were Asian, probably siblings. The oldest and youngest were boys. The middle child was a girl. All three looked around with wide eyes. They had never seen so many kids in one place that were just playing and weren’t fighting over food or warmth.

“Go ahead, you three, make some new friends.”

The oldest boy moved over to another boy about the same age as him with pale hair and a prominent nose.

“Nihao, I am Yao.”

“I am Ivan. Want to play with me and my friends?” Ivan said with a smile, indicated the three shivering children around him.

Yao turned to look over his shoulder at his little brother and sister. He gave the two reassuring smiles. A small tilt of his head told them to go meet the others.

The girl looked around. There weren’t many other girls and none of them were her age. Then, she noticed the pale haired girl sitting in a corner and holding tight to a stuffed rabbit. The other girl made no attempt to approach other children. When anyone tried to move closer to them she gave an intimidating stare.

The Asian girl of course headed right toward her.

“Hello, my name is Xue.”

The other girl responded only with silence and a glare.

“Your stuffed rabbit is really cute.”

The girl hugged it tighter to her.

“I’m not going to take it from you.”

The other girl did not relax at all.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

The fair girl shook her head from side to side.

“Well, I can talk enough for the both of us.”

Xue sat down next to the girl with the rabbit. She kept on talking on and on about this and that, asking millions of questions even if she was not going to get an answer. The silent girl often gave threatening looks or would occasional shake/nod her head to answer a question, but other than that she never spoke.

Dinner was brought to them. There was so much food. No one was going to go hungry. It was a foreign experience to the three new children, but one that they liked. After the delicious meal, they were all told it was time to go to bed. Each child had their own clean bed. 

Xue happily smiled and looked back and forth. Ivan and Yao were talking still. Her little brother was talking to another boy with a stuffed bird. Xue looked around at the other children. All of the boys seemed happy, they talked even though it was supposed to be bed time and they had been playing the entire day. The few girls that were there were like the one Xue had been talking to. They were quiet, withdrawn and looked almost scared.

The next morning, after breakfast, Xue bounced over to where Ivan and Yao were playing.

“Why are all the girls so quiet?”

“I do not know. My little sister used to follow me around before we came here. Now she sits in the corner holding that stuffed animal.”

“Oh her? What is her name?”

“Natalia.”

“Where did she get the stuffed animal?”

“I do not know. I think she got it here.” Ivan turned his attention to Yao. “Let’s play gangs.”

Yao considered for a moment. “Alright, aru.”

Xue practically skipped over to Natalia.

“Why are you so quiet?”

The girl hugged the rabbit closer, she looked like she was about to cry.

With a click, the door opened and in came the people in the white clothing.

“Who wants to come play a fun game with us?”

Xue was about to step forward along with the boys to volunteer to play a game. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Natalia push herself further against the wall. She stopped after only a step. Turning her head, she saw every girl in the room was trying to get as far away from the people in white as was possible and had looks of fear etched onto their young faces.

“Gilbert, you get to come have fun with us.”

The boys sighed in disappointment.

“N-No, Gilbert, don’t go!” A brown haired girl pleaded. 

“You are just jealous I was picked to go have an awesome time,” he said with a cocky grin as he was taken away.

Xue moved back to Natalia and dropped onto the cold floor next to her. She looked at the girl and the stuffed animal in a new light. There was something going on here.

“Natalia, what was that?”

“They take us away and we never come back.”

“What are you talking about? Why would they do that? Why would anyone volunteer for something like that?”

“The boys all forget. By tomorrow they won’t remember there ever being a Gilbert. They will think Elizabeta is just being weird for crying.”

Xue could only stare at the other girl in horror.

“They took my big sister, big brother doesn’t even remember her. They took my friend too.”

“Your friend?”

She nodded and clutched the rabbit tighter to her.

“Why don’t you tell the boys? Stop them from going with them.”

“We tried that. They don’t believe us when we tried.”

Xue tried to disbelief what she was being told, but the sounds of another girl’s crying coming to her ears made it very hard not to believe it.

When it was time for dinner, Xue had trouble eating despite the food being just as delicious as it had been the night before. She could not help looking at the others with wary eyes, ears peeled for any mention of Gilbert.

The next day she approached a boy with wavy blonde hair named Francis.

“You know everyone here, right Francis?”

“Oui.”

“What can you tell me about Gilbert?”

“Who?”

“Gilbert. They took him away yesterday.”

“No one left yesterday.”

“But I saw it!”

“Le sigh, why are all of the girls here so odd?”

Xue walked to Natalia, stiff as a board.

“I told you so.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A long time.”

“How often do they take us away?”

“I don’t know. Maybe every twenty-five days?”

Xue sat down next to Natalia. She didn’t speak, she just shared the white silence with her.

The days passed, blending into each other. Sure enough, every so often the people in white would bring new children here, and take other children away. When a child was taken away they never returned. Every time it came for them to take someone away, Xue did her best to prevent her brothers from volunteering. Unlike the other girls, Xue tried to make friends with others while they were there. She did not neglect the girls either. 

After awhile, Xue found her body changing as she grew up. The other older kids were changing as well. She felt a bit excited at the changes. Yet, as she grew older, so did Yao and the harder it became for her to stop him from volunteering over the younger children.

“Who wants to go have fun with us today?”

“I do! I do!” The voices rang out.

“How about… Ivan.”

Ivan smiled and started to walk toward them.

“NO!” 

Natalia was up from her spot and, with a running leap, tackled Ivan.

“Don’t go big brother. You won’t come back. Please, big brother. I love you. Don’t go!”

“Get off of me,” he said while pushing Natalia off of him. “Sorry about how my sister acted.” 

Natalia looked up from where she had been pushed to the ground. Her lips were moving in silent pleas for him not to go with them. She sat there, staring at the door even after he disappeared behind it.

Natalia did not touch her dinner. She spoke even less to Xue when the other girl tried to talk to her. With rabbit in hand, and her brother’s scarf wrapped around it, she was the first one in bed. She fell asleep quickly, tired from her crying.

Xue, on the other hand, could not sleep at all. She kept on looking at the dreamless back of her friend. It was because she was awake, that she felt the room shaking. 

Stifling a scream, she rushed out of bed to look around. In the bathroom she found a gap in the wall. On the other side was bare earth and hot sun. Even as she looked at it, the wall began to close up slowly but noticeably. Her eyes widened as she watched.

She ran back to the room and shook Natalia.

“Wake up, you have to wake up.”

The other teenage girl looked up at Xue.

“What is it?”

“Natalia, come with me.”

She pulled Natalia out of bed. The girl managed to keep grip on her scarf wearing rabbit as she was dragged out through the eating area. Xue grabbed as much of the snacks that were always out for them as she could and told Natalia to do the same. She led the way to the bathroom and threw the food onto the other side of the closing gap.

“Natalia, you can get away.”

She did not need any more prompting. Natalia crawled through the closing hole. Once on the other side she turned around to assist Xue. The other girl was not coming through, she just stood on the other side, watching.

“Hurry up, before it closes.”

“I can’t leave my brothers.”

“Xue, you have to come with me.”

“No.”

“Xue!” Natalia screamed her name as the people in the white clothing entered the bathroom.

“I think someone should come with us.”

“N-No,” Xue whispered as she tried to back away from them.

Natalia saw her chance. She reached back through the hole and grabbed Xue, pulling her through. Xue painfully scrapped her skin against the sides, but she made it to the other side. The person in white who had grabbed for Xue had not been so lucky. The wall closed up around his hand, severing it.

“Yao… Huang…”

“We can get help. We will get help and we’ll go rescue them.”

Xue looked up at Natalia. There was anger in her brown eyes for a moment, but then she smiled and nodded at the other girl. She reached down and began to gather the food into her skirt.

“Right. We will go back for them.”

Together, the two girls set out across the dying Earth. They would find someone to help them rescue the others. If they could not find anyone, then they would become stronger and would do the rescue themselves. The scientists inside the building wrote the two girls off as dead. After all, two children could never survive in the wasteland.

Together, Xue and Natalia reached a small enclave of humans. Outside the gate a single flower bloomed in defiance of the dying Earth around it.

**Author's Note:**

> While this is gen, I wrote it intending that as Belarus and Taiwan grow older that they would become a couple.


End file.
